Donald Trump is trying to fix what he broke. In 2018, during his first term as U.S. president, Trump unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, denouncing it as a terrible deal and imposing crippling sanctions on Iran’s economy. Last week, in an about-face,Trump dispatched a delegation to Oman to lay the ground […]
Israel and Turkey have taken the first concrete step to reduce tensions over their respective interests in Syria. Yesterday, Israeli and Turkish delegations conferred in Azerbaijan for talks to head off incidents that could degenerate into full-blown clashes between Israel and Turkey. “Under the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a political-security delegation led by […]
Compared to his upbeat meeting with Donald Trump in Washington in February, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent encounter with the U.S. president was generally disappointing. Netanyahu arrived at the White House on March 7, fresh from a successful visit to Hungary, whose illiberal president, Viktor Orban, is aligned with Israel and the United States […]
Rumblings of discontent rolled through the Gaza Strip this week, raising speculation that Hamas’ popularity, such as it is, could well be on the wane. In the past few days, hundreds of Palestinians have taken to the streets of Gaza City, Beit Lahiya, Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah to vent their frustration and anger over a […]
Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, is methodically expanding the network of Israeli settlements in the West Bank at a blistering pace, deliberately foreclosing the increasingly remote possibility of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. This comes as no surprise. Netanyahu, a champion of settlements, has said that Jews have an […]
The United States has escalated its military campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, but they remain defiant, prompting speculation whether they can be defeated any time soon. Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a massive wave of air strikes on their command centers, weapons depots and training sites. The bombings, the heaviest ever targeting […]
A few days ago, Israel’s incoming chief of staff, General Eyal Zamir, predicted that 2025 would be “a year of war.” His prediction has proven to be correct. On March 18, Israel’s tenuous two-month ceasefire with Hamas broke down as Israel ferociously resumed the war in the Gaza Strip. “Israel will, from now on, act […]
Israel’s “temporary” occupation of territory in southern Syria is turning into something more permanent. With the the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime last December, Israel went into high gear in an attempt to weaken Syria, one of its arch enemies. Israel bombed Syrian military assets, most of which are Russian in origin, and unilaterally […]
Seventeen months after the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still stubbornly refuses to create an independent commission to review the events that culminated in the deadliest single day in Israel’s history. On that morning, some 3,000 Hamas terrorists attacked a string of kibbutzim, towns, army bases and a […]
The fate of the Gaza Strip hangs in the balance. Gaza, invaded by the Israeli army after Hamas’ massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has descended into a twilight zone since January 19, the day the ceasefire negotiated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt kicked in. While the Israel-Hamas war has stopped, […]